Jack Hobbs
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- This article is about Jack Hobbs the Surrey & England cricketer. For the Liverpool F.C. footballer, see Jack Hobbs (footballer).
Template:Infobox Historic Cricketer Sir John Berry 'Jack' Hobbs (born 16 December 1882 in Cambridge, England, died 21 December 1963 in Hove, Sussex) played cricket for Surrey and England. Renowned as a very modest and self-effacing man, he was popularly referred to as "The Master". He is generally regarded as the greatest English batsman of all time.
As an opener, he scored more first-class runs (61,237 per Wisden, 61,760 per Cricinfo) and more first-class centuries (197 per Wisden, 199 per Cricinfo) than any other cricketer, records which will never be beaten since modern cricketers now play fewer first class matches.
He scored over 1,000 runs per season in 26 separate seasons. Only four men have ever scored over 1,000 in more seasons.
Over half of his career total of centuries were scored after he had turned 40 years old, and in 1929 he became the oldest man ever, at 46, to score a century in a Test Match.
He retired in 1934 after playing 61 Test matches between 1908 and 1930, with a career batting average in his first-class cricket of 50.70. This was despite a four year interruption to his career due to the First World War, during which he served in the Royal Flying Corps as an Air Mechanic.
After retirement as a player, he took up cricket journalism. In 1953 he became the first cricketer to receive a knighthood in recognition of his services to sport.
Hobbs toured Australia five times during his career and was voted one of the five Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 1909. He was also named as Wisden's only Cricketer of the Year in 1926, when he was 44, the fourth and last time that a single player has been selected. As a result, Hobbs is one of only two cricketers named twice as a Cricketer of the Year (the other being Plum Warner, who was also the sole Cricketer of the Year in 1921).
In 2000, Hobbs was named by a 100-member panel of experts as the third of five Wisden Cricketers of the Century. Hobbs received 30 votes, behind Sir Donald Bradman (100 votes) and Sir Garfield Sobers (90 votes). Shane Warne (27 votes) and Sir Viv Richards (25 votes) took the fourth and fifth places.
A short memoir, Playing for England!, was published in 1931.
Template:English batsman with a Test batting average over 50